Wells saw it. "And they would evolve in that direction, according to the principles of Darwin — of course! Succeeding generations would develop attenuated limbs. Insects like your ant, Watson, could grow to a large size. But larger animals would be dragged more strongly to the ground. A horse, for example, might need legs as thick as an elephant's to support its weight."
"You have it," said Holmes. "But I doubt if there was time, or resource, for Ralph to study more than a generation or two of the higher animals. There was only his wife's unlucky labrador to use as test subject. And when Watson opens the envelope in his pocket, he will find the assay of the urine samples from that animal to display excessive levels of calcium."
That startled me. I retrieved and opened the envelope, and was not surprised — I know the man! — to find the results just as Holmes had predicted.
"The calcium is from the bones of the animal," Holmes said. "Trapped by Ralph in a region in which it needed to support less weight, the bitch's musculature and bone structure must have become progressively weaker, with bone calcium being washed out in urine. The same phenomenon is observed in patients suffering excessive bed rest, and I saw certain indications of the syndrome in those discoloured patches of lawn."
"Then the means of his death," Wells said, "must indeed be related to Ralph Brimicombe's successful modification of gravity itself."
"Certainly," said Holmes. "And similarly related are the motive behind the crime, and the opportunity."
Wells grew excited. "You've solved it, Holmes? What a remarkable man you are!"
"For the morrow," Holmes said. "For now, let us enjoy the hospitality of the landlord, and each other's company. I too enjoyed your Time Machine, Wells."
He seemed flattered. "Thank you."
"Especially your depiction of the crumbling of our foolish civilization. Although I am not convinced you had thought it through far enough. Our degradation, when it comes, will surely be more dramatic and complete."
"Oh, indeed? Then let me set you a challenge, Mr Holmes. What if I were to transport you, through time, to some remote future — as remote as the era of the great lizards — let us say, tens of millions of years. How would you deduce the former existence of mankind?"
My friend rested his legs comfortably on a stool and tamped his pipe. "A pretty question. We must remember first that everything humans construct will revert to simpler chemicals over time. One must only inspect the decay of the Egyptian pyramids to see that, and they are young compared to the geologic epochs you evoke. None of our concrete or steel or glass will last even a million years."
"But," said Wells, "perhaps some human remains might be preserved in volcanic ash, as at Pompeii and Herculaneum. These remains might have artifacts in close proximity, such as jewellery or surgical tools. And geologists of the future will surely find a layer of ash and lead and zinc to mark the presence of our once-noble civilization — "
But Holmes did not agree -
And on they talked, H.G. Wells and Sherlock Holmes together, in a thickening haze of tobacco smoke and beer fumes, until my own poor head was spinning with the concepts they juggled.
The next morning, we made once more for the Brimicombe home. Holmes asked for Tarquin.
The younger Brimicombe entered the drawing room, sat comfortably and crossed his legs.
Holmes regarded him, equally at his ease. "This case has reminded me of a truism I personally find easy to forget: how little people truly understand of the world around us. You demonstrated this, Watson, with your failure to predict the correct fall of my sovereign and farthing, even though it is but an example of a process you must observe a hundred times a day. And yet it takes a man of genius - a Galileo - to be the first to perform a clear and decisive experiment in such a matter.You are no genius, Mr Brimicombe, and still less so is the engineer, Bryson. And yet you studied your brother's work; your grasp of the theory is the greater, and your understanding of the behaviour of objects inside the Inertial Adjustor is bound to be wider than poor Bryson's."
Ralph stared at Holmes, the fingers of one hand trembling slightly.
Holmes rested his hands behind his head. "After all, it was a drop of only ten feet or so. Even Watson here could survive a fall like that - perhaps with bruises and broken bones. But it was not Ralph's fall that killed him, was it? Tarquin, what was the mass of the capsule?"
"About ten tons."
"Perhaps a hundred times Ralph's mass. And so - in the peculiar conditions of the Inertial Adjustor - it fell to the floor a hundred times faster than Ralph."
And then, in a flash, I saw it all. Unlike my friendly lift cabin of Wells's analogy, the capsule would drive rapidly to the floor, engulfing Ralph. My unwelcome imagination ran away with the point: I saw the complex ceiling of the capsule smashing into Ralph's staring face, a fraction of a second before the careening metal hit his body and he burst like a balloon ...
Tarquin buried his eyes in the palm of his hand. "I live with the image. Why are you telling me this?"
For answer, Holmes turned to Wells. "Mr Wells, let us test your own powers of observation. What is the single most startling aspect of the case?"
He frowned. "When we first visited the Inertial Adjustor chamber with Tarquin, I recall looking into the capsule, and scanning the floor and couch for signs of Ralph's death."
"But," Holmes said, "the evidence of Ralph's demise bizarre, grotesque - were fixed to the ceiling not the floor."
"Yes. Tarquin told me to look up — just as later, now I think on it, you, Mr Holmes, had to tell the engineer Bryson to raise his head, and his face twisted in horror." He studied Holmes. "So, a breaking of the symmetry at last. Tarquin knew where to look; Bryson did not. What does that tell us?"
Holmes said, "By looking down, by seeking traces of Ralph on the couch, the floor, we demonstrated we had not understood what had happened to Ralph. We had to be shown — as had Bryson! If Bryson had sought to murder Ralph he would have chosen some other method. Only someone who has studied the properties of a gravity field changed by the Inertial Adjustor would know immediately how cutting that cable would kill Ralph."
Tarquin sat very still, eyes covered. "Someone like me, you mean?"
Wells said, "Is that an admission, Tarquin?"
Tarquin lifted his face to Holmes, looking thoughtful. "You do not have any proof. And there is a counter-argument. Bryson could have stopped me, before I cut through the cable. The fact that he did not is evidence of his guilt!"
"But he was not there," Holmes said evenly. "As you arranged."
Tarquin guffawed. "He was taking breakfast with my sister-in-law! How could I arrange such a thing?"
"There is the matter of Bryson's breakfast egg, which took unusually long to cook," Holmes said.
"Your egg again, Holmes!" Wells cried.
"On that morning," said Holmes, "and that morning alone, you, Mr Brimicombe, collected fresh eggs from the coop. I checked with the housekeeper. The eggs used for breakfast here are customarily a day or more old. As you surely learned as a child fond of the hens, Tarquin, a fresh egg takes appreciably longer to cook than one that is a day or more old. A fresh egg has a volume of clear albumen solution trapped in layers of dense egg white around the yolk. These layers make the egg sit up in the frying pan. After some days the albumen layers degenerate, and the more watery egg will flatten out, and is more easily cooked."
Wells gasped. "My word, Holmes. Is there no limit to your intelligence?"
"Oh," said Brimicombe, "but this is — "
"Mr Brimicombe," Holmes said steadily, "you are not a habitual criminal. When I call in the police they will find all the proof any court in the land could require. Do you doubt that?"
Tarquin Brimicombe considered for a while, and then said: "Perhaps not." He gave Holmes a grin, like a good loser on the playing field. "Maybe I tried to be too clever; I thought I was home clear anyway, but when I knew you were corning I decided to bluff you over Bryson to be sure. I knew about his
involvement with Jane; I knew he would have a motive for you to pick up — "
"And so you tried to implicate an innocent man." I could see Holmes's cool anger building.
Wells said, "So it is resolved. Tell me one thing.Tarquin. If not for your brother's money, why?"
He showed surprise. "Do you not know, Bertie? The first aviator will be the most famous man in history. I wanted to be that man, to fly Ralph's craft into the air, perhaps even to other worlds."
"But," Wells said, "Ralph claimed to have flown already all the way to the moon and back."
Tarquin dismissed this with a gesture. "Nobody believed that. I could have been first. But my brother would never have allowed it."
"And so," said Wells bitterly, "you destroyed your brother and his work — rather than allow him precedence."
There was a touch of pride in Tarquin's voice. "At least I can say I gave my destiny my best shot, Bertie Wells. Can you say the same?"
The formalities of Tarquin Brimicombe's arrest and charging were concluded rapidly, and the three of us, without regret, took the train for London. The journey was rather strained; Wells, having enjoyed the hunt, now seemed embittered by the unravelling of the Brimicombe affair. He said, "It is a tragedy that the equipment is so smashed up, that Ralph's note-taking was so poor, that his brother — murderer or not — is such a dullard. It will not prove possible to restore Ralph's work, I fear."
Holmes mused, "But the true tragedy here is that of a scientist who sacrificed his humanity — the love of his wife — for knowledge."
Wells grew angry. "Really. And what of you, Mr Holmes, and your dry quest for fact, fact, fact? What have you sacrificed?"
"I do not judge," Holmes said easily. "I merely observe."
"At any rate," said Wells, "it may be many years before humans truly fly to the moon — oh, I am reminded." He dug into a coat pocket and pulled out a small, stoppered vial. It contained a quantity of grey-black dust, like charcoal. "I found it. Here is the 'moon dust' which Ralph gave me, the last element of his hoax." He opened the bottle and shook a thimbleful of dust into the palms of Holmes and myself.
I poked at the grains. They were sharp-edged. The dust had a peculiar smell: "Like wood smoke," I opined.
"Or wet ash," Wells suggested. "Or gunpowder!"
Holmes frowned thoughtfully. "I suppose the soil of the moon, never having been exposed to air, would react with the oxygen in our atmosphere. The iron contained therein — it would be like a slow burning — "
Wells collected the dust from us. He seemed angry and bitter. "Let us give up this foolishness. What a waste this all is. How many advances of the intellect have been betrayed by the weakness of the human heart? Oh, perhaps I might make a romance of this — but that is all that is left! Here! Have done with you!" And with an impetuous gesture he opened the carriage window and shook out the vial, scattering dust along the track. Holmes raised an elegant hand, as if to stop him, but he was too late. The dust was soon gone, and Wells discarded the bottle
itself.
For the rest of the journey to Paddington, Holmes was strangely thoughtful, and said little.
The Adventure of the Touch of God - Peter Crowther
It was with a mixture of trepidation and eager anticipation that, on a cold and dank November evening, having just arrived back at our rooms in Baker Street from a day-long symposium on glandular deterioration, I greeted Sherlock Holmes's announcement that we were to journey to Harrogate.
Despite being some 200 or more miles from the capital's bustling familiarity and drudgery (two indistinguishable sides of the same tarnished coin), the trip clearly promised a return to matters of detection. For though Holmes complemented news of our impending departure with the promise of bracingYorkshire air to clean clogged and jaded tubes — of both a bronchial and a cerebral nature — I suspected an ulterior motive.
That is not to say that my good friend was not given to displays of impetuosity. Indeed, he had proven to me on many occasions that he was the very soul of immediacy. It was as though he were cognizant of his own mortality. Sometimes, I even thought that he was frightened of idleness, though he was not a man prone to fear or cowardice. Rather it was, or so it seemed, the prospect of inaction that presented the most serious affront to his sense of being. Action, or "the game" as he liked to regard the often heinous crimes whose unravelling he was frequently called upon to master, was what he was here to do. It was for this singular reason that I so welcomed the prospect.
For myself, however, the approach was entirely different. Somewhat in contradiction to the cautious and even begrudging excitement I have already mentioned, it was my custom to regard the prospect of further nefarious activities with some
apprehension. On the occasion in question, this feeling was particularly pronounced.
"Might I at least remove my topcoat?" I enquired.
"No time for that, old fellow," Holmes blustered. "We are to leave within the hour. Here." He held out to me a single sheet of paper and the envelope in which it had arrived.
Affixing my reading spectacles, I glanced at the letter and its careful and practised copperplate hand. "Read it aloud, old fellow," Holmes proclaimed with a pride that suggested he himself as the missive's author.
" 'My Dear Mr Sherlock Holmes,' it begins," I said. " 'Please forgive the brevity of this note and its undoubted intrusion on your privacy but I am in dire need of advice and assistance on a matter of grave importance.' "
" 'Grave importance', " Holmes said, turning his back to the fire crackling in the grate. "Capital!" He glanced across at me and waved a dismissive hand. "Do continue, Watson."
I returned my attention to the letter.
" 'A situation has arisen,' " I resumed, " 'here in Harrogate which, I feel, requires a level of experience and a depth of knowledge that I am in all honesty quite unqualified to provide, despite some thirty years with the Force.' "
"Force?" I enquired of Holmes. "The sender is a policeman?" "Read on, read on," Holmes instructed, and he walked to the window and stared into the street.
I returned to the letter. " 'We are plagued with a villain the likes of what I have never encountered,' " I read, " 'a madman in whose wake we now have three deaths and little or no explanation as to the reason behind them. It would be not proper for me to outline the manner of these inhuman atrocities in this letter but I feel sure that they will be of sufficient interest to warrant your visiting us at your earliest availability.' "
The letter closed with the writer's assurance that, in the event of our accepting his invitation, rooms would be arranged for us on our behalf at a nearby hostelry, and at no cost to ourselves. It was signed Gerald John Makinson, Inspector of the North Yorkshire Police.
"What do you say to that, Watson?" Holmes said, warming himself against the fire, his back arched like that of a cat.
I did not know quite what to make of it, save that the Inspector's grasp of the King's English was somewhat lacking and I told my friend as much. "For that matter," I added, "who is this Makinson fellow?"
"I was introduced to him by our very own Lestrade, last June as I recall. The fellow was down in London to attend a series of presentations on the increasing use of behavioural science in law enforcement. His address was most enlightening."
"Apparently the meeting made something of an impression," I observed.
"And one beside that of simple grammatical impropriety," said Holmes. He stepped away from the fire and rubbed his hands gleefully before removing his watch from a pocket in his waistcoat. He glanced at the timepiece. "Almost five and twenty past seven,Watson." He returned the watch and smiled, his eyes narrowing. "There is a milk train which leaves King's Cross station at four minutes past ten o'clock. It is my intention that we be on it."
I was about to protest, fully realizing that it would be to no avail, when Holmes turned around and strode purposefully from the room. "Might I rely on you to pack some suitable clothes, old fellow?" he requested over his sho
ulder. "And please do bear in mind that Yorkshire is not a county renowned for the clemency of its weather, particularly at this time of the year." With that, he slammed his bedroom door.
I glanced down at the single sheet of paper in my hand. It never ceased to amaze me at how little it took to propel my friend to levels of great excitement, and at how quickly those levels could be so attained. It was a trait that was at once both enviable and despairing to behold, for these high moods when he was absorbed in a case were countered by depths of depression when he was not. It was at times such as this that Sherlock Holmes reminded me not so much of a sleuth as of a young schoolboy, so pure were his beliefs and motivations.
I set to preparing overnight bags for the two of us, including sufficient clothes for a few days' stay, and, when Holmes reappeared, we left our rooms and, without further conversation, ventured out into the cold evening.
We boarded the train at five minutes to ten o'clock and made our way immediately to our sleeping compartments. At the prescribed time, the train departed King's Cross and headed
for Yorkshire. As the gently rocking motion of the carriage lulled me towards sleep, I watched the dark countryside pass by the window, noting somewhat ominously that the fog was growing seemingly thicker with each yard we travelled northwards.
We arrived in Leeds at a little after a quarter past six on the following morning.
I had had a reasonable enough night's sleep, the rocking of the carriage keeping me quite comforted. Holmes, however, appeared not to have fared so well and, when I first saw him in the corridor, he looked pale and drawn, his eyes pouched and discoloured. He was fully dressed and clearly ready to disembark and begin the next stage of our journey.
"Sleep well, old fellow?" he enquired in a tone that suggested the answer was less important than the fact that, in his opinion, he had been waiting too long to pose it.
"I did indeed," I replied. "And you?"
The Mammoth Book of New Sherlock Holmes Adventures Page 36
